1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display terminal equipment and more particularly to a display terminal equipment with plural input devices which are concurrently operable for the input of data to a single display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the control/process capabilities of terminal equipments and workstations having a display function have been improved greatly. It has now become possible to provide a plurality of display areas on the screen of a single display device and to allocate a different job to each area.
As the systems of forming a plurality of display areas, there are a simple horizontal split screen system, a window system for setting a display area at an arbitrary position, and a multiwindow system capable of setting a plurality of windows in an overlapped manner.
A multiwindow function is used, for example, in "A Multifunction Workstation: Hitachi Creative Workstation 2050" described in Hitachi Review, April 1986 Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 73 to 78.
With conventional display terminal equipments (including workstations), input from an operator is handled one input after another for each display area. In other words, a plurality of operators cannot use one terminal equipment at the same time.
According to the above-described related art, if an operator is inputting data from a keyboard for word processing to create a document, another operator cannot execute a job of, for example, "floppy disk to print" unless the former operator stops his or her job and allows for the latter to use the keyboard. As the control/process capabilities of a terminal equipment with plural display areas have been improved, it is presently desired that a plurality of input devices such as keyboards be connected to the terminal equipment and operated at the same time to fully utilize such high capabilities.